On the Words: Monogenes Theos in Scripture and Tradition (No. B4)

Christian Churches of God

No. B4

On the Words:

Monogenes Theos

in Scripture and Tradition

(Edition 1.0 20080127-20080127)

This extremely important dissertation on the text in John 1:18 has been suppressed for many years because it does not support mainstream theology. The preface explains the background to the work and the earlier examination by Dr. Tregelles. The reworking of the Nicene Creed by the Constantinopolitan conference of 381 CE is obvious from the discussion.

Christian Churches of God

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(Copyright ã 2008 Christian Churches of God, ed. Wade Cox)

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Introduction

As the great theologians of history have continually pointed out the Bible is Unitarian in both Old and New Testaments. CCG has devoted its time and energy into the exposition of the historical development of the Nature of God and the errors that have surfaced over time with what is termed Christianity.

There is coherency and unity between the Old and New Testaments. It is quite clear that God the Father is the One True God of both collections of Scripture. Christ is His mediator, and agent of redemption, the one who reveals His will to humanity.

Once we keep that in mind we can perceive more fully the implications of John's statement in John 1:18:

No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son [Marshall's RSV Interlinear, only begotten (Gk. monogenes theos meaning only-born) God], who is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared [him].

The use of theos referring to Christ is in the sense that it is not HoTheos or The One True God but in the subordinate sense of one of the elohim as we see referred to in the Psalms. This is the one referred to as being the Logos of the NT or the Memra of the OT. He was the one who spoke. He declared or spoke and [Him] has been added to the text as we see from the Interlinear text.

The work by Dr Hort of 1876, On Monogenes Theos in Scripture and Tradition (No. B4) deals with the term monogenese theos in the various texts. Some comments by Dr Hort appear to contradict the obvious Unitarian nature of the texts but it must be remembered that the establishment was Trinitarian controlled and still spends a great deal of time trying to suppress the theological exegesis that points out its simple incoherencies. Remember that Sir Isaac Newton survived by virtue of his scientific brilliance. William Whiston was not so blessed and was deposed as Lucasian professor for holding the same views.

To any Bible student seeking to get to the bottom of the true intent of the texts this work is indispensable. It has been very carefully hidden since it was written and there are only a few copies available. CCG has published it in the public interest in the furtherance of Bible literacy and accuracy.

Wade Cox

CCG

ON MONOGENES THEOS

PREFACE

The former of these Dissertations is an attempt to examine in some detail a single point of textual criticism, the true reading of a phrase occurring in a cardinal verse of the New Testament. Once only has the evidence been discussed with anything like adequate care and precision, namely in a valuable article contributed by Professor Ezra Abbot to the American Bibliotheca Sacra of October 1861. After having long had occasion to study the matter pretty closely, I am unable to accept the conclusions drawn by this eminent biblical scholar; and accordingly it seemed worthwhile to place on record the results of an independent investigation. My own opinion has not been formed hastily. Some years passed before increasing knowledge and clearness of view respecting the sources of the Greek text of the New Testament convinced me of the incorrectness of the received reading in John i 18. This conviction did not however remove the sense of a certain strangeness in the alternative phrase transmitted by the best authorities; and for a considerable time I saw no better solution of the difficulty than a conjecture that both readings alike were amplifications of a simpler original. It was a more careful study of the whole context that finally took away all lingering doubt as to the intrinsic probability of the less familiar reading.

In all cases where the text of a single passage is dealt with separately, a deceptive disadvantage lies on those who have learned the insecurity of trying to interpret complex textual evidence without reference to previously ascertained relationships, either between the documents or between earlier lines of transmission attested by the documents. Their method presupposes a wide induction, the evidence for which cannot be set out within reasonable limits. Thus, so far as they are able to go beyond that naked weighing of ‘authorities’ against each other which commonly passes as textual criticism in the case of the New Testament, they are in danger of seeming to follow an arbitrary theory, when they are in fact using the only safeguard against the consecration of arbitrary predilection under the specious name of internal evidence.

The exhibition of the documentary evidence itself needs hardly any further preface. It will, I trust, be found more completely and more exactly given than elsewhere but the additions and rectifications, though not perhaps without interest, make no extensive change in the elementary data which have to be interpreted, unless it be in some of the patristic quotations. The decisiveness of the external evidence would not be materially less if it were taken as it is presented in any good recent apparatus: in other words, the legitimacy of an appeal to internal evidence on less than the clearest and strongest grounds would hardly be increased.

It is however in internal evidence that the supposed strength of the case against the less familiar reading undoubtedly consists: and throughout this part of the discussion I have had to break fresh ground. What is said about the relation of the eighteenth verse of St John’s Prologue to preceding verses is intended to meet the more serious of the two apparent difficulties, that arising from supposed incongruity with the context and supposed want of harmony with the language of Scripture elsewhere, and is addressed equally to upholders of the received reading and to those who distrust the originality of either reading. The question of relative probabilities of change in transmission, less pertinent in itself finds, I have tried to shew, in the actual phenomena of the biblical and patristic texts an opposite answer to the answer assumed by anticipation when the manner in which ancient transcribers would be affected by dogmatic proclivities is inferred from the crudities of modern controversy. Here Professor Abbot’s original argument is supplemented by an ingenious article in the Theological Review for October 1871, written by Professor James Drummond, and also by a short paper in the Unitarian Review of June 1875 by Professor Abbot himself, for a separate impression of which I have to thank the author’s courtesy. Had Professor Drummond's article come into my hands sooner, I might have been tempted to follow his speculations point by point. As it was, it seemed best to refrain from rewriting an exposition of facts, which, if true, was fatal to his very premises. It was obviously desirable that the comments on the evidence itself should be encumbered as little as possible with controversial digressions, though I have tried to do justice, in argument as well as in mind, to every tangible suggestion adverse to my own conclusions, whether offered in the articles already mentioned or elsewhere. On the other hand against the verdicts of oracular instinct I confess myself helpless: they must be left to work their legitimate effect on such readers as find them impressive.

Since this Dissertation was set up in type as an academic exercise some months ago, in which form it was seen by a few friends, it has been revised and slightly enlarged under the sanction required by the University Ordinances. The last three of the appended Notes are likewise now first added. The two longer of these supply illustrations of incidental statements in the Dissertation rather than contributions to its argument. Indeed I should be specially unwilling to seem to make the principal issue in any way dependent on the theory propounded in the last Note. At the same time the history of the detached phrase taken from the verse of St John cannot safely be neglected in any thorough investigation of the text. Wetstein’s pardonable but misleading confusion between the text and the phrase was unfortunately overlooked by Dr Tregelles, to whom belongs the credit of recalling attention to the passage, and pointing out the inferiority of the external evidence for the received reading. But Professor Abbot’s warning against this confusion carries us only a little way. The traditional use of the phrase remains itself a part, though a subordinate part, of the evidence; and the remarkable inverseness of its currency with that of the parent reading invited, if it did not necessitate an enquiry into the true construction of the corresponding clauses in the Nicene Creed.

The latter Dissertation grew out of the last Note accompanying the former. The ‘Constantinopolitan’ modification of the Nicene language needed explanation: and while the recent researches of friends had disproved the direct responsibility of the Council of Constantinople for the Creed which bears the same name, it was unsatisfactory to rest without investigating whatever evidence might lead to a positive conclusion respecting the origin of this Creed and the motives of its authors. But the results actually obtained were wholly unexpected, and it was only by degrees that they presented themselves. The main outlines are, I trust, established: but it will be surprising if no fresh data are brought to light by those whose knowledge of early Christian literature and history is wider and surer than mine. Continental criticism is unfortunately silent, with a single exception, on most of the questions which I have had to raise: and it has been disappointing to find how little help was to be obtained, even on conspicuous points, from the studies in the history of doctrine which have been carried on for the last two or three generations. The exception is furnished by Professor C. P. Caspari of Christiania, whose book on Ungedruckte, unbeachtete, und wenig beachtete Quellen zur Geschichte des Taufsymbols und der Glaubensregel is a mine of new texts and original illustrations. Although the separate obligations are all, I hope, acknowledged in the proper places, it is a duty to say here how much the latter pages of the Dissertation owe to his patient and conscientious labours; and the more since I have been often obliged to dissent from his conclusions. Perhaps it may be found a corroboration of the view here taken that it serves to link together his scattered researches, so far as they relate to Eastern Creeds. The publication of the Dictionary of Christian Antiquities has given me the advantage of seeing Mr Ffoulkes’s articles on the Councils of Constantinople and Antioch while the last sheets were passing through the press. I have thus been led to add in a note the Greek text of the fifth canon of Constantinople; but have not found reason to make any other change.

Both Dissertations are of a critical nature, and directed solely towards discovering the true facts of history respecting certain ancient writings. On the other hand I should hardly have cared to spend so much time on the enquiry, had the subject matter itself been distasteful, or had I been able to regard it as unimportant. To any Christian of consistent belief it cannot be indifferent what language St John employed on a fundamental theme; and no one who feels how much larger the exhibition of truth perpetuated in Scripture is than any propositions that have ever been deduced from it can be a party to refusing it the right of speaking words inconvenient, if so it be, to the various traditional schools which claim to be adequate representatives of its teaching. Nor again is it of small moment to understand rightly the still living and ruling doctrinal enunciations of the ancient Church, which cannot be rightly understood while their original purpose is misapprehended. Even the best theological literature of that age, as of every age, contains much which cannot possibly be true: and it is difficult to imagine how the study of Councils has been found compatible with the theory which requires us to find Conciliar utterances Divine. But the great Greek Creeds of the fourth century, and the ‘Constantinopolitan’ Creed most, will bear severe testing with all available resources of judgement after these many ages of change. Assuredly they do not contain all truth, even within the limits of subject by which they were happily confined. But their guidance never fails to be found trustworthy, and for us at least it is necessary. Like other gifts of God’s Providence, they can be tuned to deadly use: but to those who employ them rightly they are the safeguard of a large and a progressive faith.